D&D General Do you like LOTS of races/ancestries/whatever? If so, why?

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Ridiculous. You seem to think a GM is the employee of the players. That's absolutely not the case. It is a group activity but it is one that is assymetric in regards to work input. A group is absolutely entitled to play what they want to play but they don't get to force a GM to run a game they want to run just because the vote is 5 to 1. Instead, that's a group that should be a GM and 4 players.

I think that the DM needs to compromise if all of the players disagree with them. Good DMs aren't tyrants that force their view of the game over the views of all of the other players. Compromising and taking feedback from your friends isn't "being a servant to the players".

 

[Xamnam]

Then they would be welcome to leave and do that, or have one of them run that game. I would not even want to play in it. I would find it silly and ridiculous, and I take my RPG time more seriously than that. I want adventure and fun, certainly, but not things I would consider worthless.

To me, this sounds like an r/rpghorrorstories in the making.

How is a prospective DM/player recognizing that what a table is looking for is fundamentally a terrible match for their sensibilities and walking away a horror story?

 

[Reynard]

I think that the DM needs to compromise if all of the players disagree with them. Good DMs aren't tyrants that force their view of the game over the views of all of the other players. Compromising and taking feedback from your friends isn't "being a servant to the players".

Why? Isn't the GM entitled to "no thank you"? Why can't the players say "no thank you" and start their own game. With blackguards and hoophaks? If players demand a kind of game, they're welcome to it, but one of them needs to step up and get behind the screen.

 

[Azzy]

I would and do use the terms Mos Eisley or Kitchen Sink as positive descriptors, but in their most frequent use, they are overwhelmingly surrounded by text that colors its intention as dismissive, usually in the sense that it's thoughtless, lazy, or indiscriminate and therefore boring. Barring an explicitly positive note, or even just lacking other context, it's a fair guess to take that it is not being meant as praise.

All of this.

 

[Tonguez]

I think that the DM needs to compromise if all of the players disagree with them. Good DMs aren't tyrants that force their view of the game over the views of all of the other players. Compromising and taking feedback from your friends isn't "being a servant to the players".

You do realise that a DM is just another player, a person there to interact and have fun. If they dont find something fun then they have every right to say “nah, I dont wanna DM this time, why dont you take over?”

Good players need to accept that noone is obliged to DM for you.

 

[Incenjucar]

The different table preferences are all valid. This is only really an issue when players are stuck between choosing a DM they don't enjoy or not being able to play. If there was an endless supply of non-horrible DMs it wouldn't be a concern if some of them were more restrictive than others.

It can be pretty rough for people stuck with limited options, though, and I think that the struggle to find a DM who is interested in providing something a given set of players find to be fun may be behind a lot of the negativity here. DMs being a scarce resource, they have an outsized impact on the experience of others.

 

[Azzy]

I disagree with this pretty strongly. SW doesn’t narrow down at all. Each new installment features new species, and every iteration of the roleplaying game features more and more species the longer it is in publication. The video games narrow down, but like the SW rpg core book, that’s a matter of format limitations, not worldbuilding.

Hell, Star Wars Saga Edition eventually got rules for making new species.

Going farther back (to further your point), the old WEG D6 SW RPG (which still has a large fanbase) had stats for most of the species that existed in the movies and novels that existed at the time (and several original ones).

 

[Hussar]

Who said that?

No, no, he's entirely right there. I do not care one whit about world building. That's totally fair.

To me, a game world doesn't exist until the PC's interact with it and ceases to exist the second they leave.

Frankly, any DM who thinks it's more important to not have race X than to play with that player is a DM I want nothing to do with.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

But sharks vs crabs vs karkens?

I’m cool with that,

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I think that the DM needs to compromise if all of the players disagree with them. Good DMs aren't tyrants that force their view of the game over the views of all of the other players. Compromising and taking feedback from your friends isn't "being a servant to the players".

Why? Isn't the GM entitled to "no thank you"? Why can't the players say "no thank you" and start their own game. With blackguards and hoophaks? If players demand a kind of game, they're welcome to it, but one of them needs to step up and get behind the screen.

Over the past few decades in the hobby, I have usually taken feedback & suggestions from players. But there is always a point beyond which I will not compromise. What that point may be depends on what I‘m trying to run.

If there’s a strong campaign reason for there not to be a particular race, it may not be possible for a player to convince me to allow an an exception. I know from experience a blood-hungry madman PC wouldn’t fit well in a “4-color heroic” type game, so I wouldn’t permit one. If my choice of system for a particular game isn’t popular, I probably will not change it, and will simply not run that campaign.*

But before the point of “No.” is reached, there’s always discussion. If I think the idea is good, but there’s stil reasons why I’d have to refuse it, I’d work with the player to try coming up with a viable alternative.







* I’ve compromised on that once, and it didn’t work out well.

 

[Scribe]

Do you think all forms of entertainment would be better if the details were up for a vote?

Considering this forum? Nothing would reach print.

 

[Hussar]

Now, to backtrack my point a bit. I am presuming good faith on the part of the player. The player isn't deliberately picking stuff that doesn't fit with the campaign. They are makign the earnest attempt to make a character that is in keeping with what they understand to be the campaign.

So, yeah, the bloodthirsty character in a 4 color heroic game is simply a mismatch in understanding. Fair enough.

But, that's not what's been asked in this thread. People are making claims that this:

is too "monstrous" to play and would be killed on sight. But this:

would totally pass in any bar in any town without any problem.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Now, to backtrack my point a bit. I am presuming good faith on the part of the player. The player isn't deliberately picking stuff that doesn't fit with the campaign. They are makign the earnest attempt to make a character that is in keeping with what they understand to be the campaign.

So, yeah, the bloodthirsty character in a 4 color heroic game is simply a mismatch in understanding. Fair enough.

But, that's not what's been asked in this thread. People are making claims that this:

View attachment 268041
is too "monstrous" to play and would be killed on sight. But this:

View attachment 268042
would totally pass in any bar in any town without any problem.

I’ve been in games in which that dichotomy would be true. I’ve also been in campaigns in which the exact opposite would be the case. And still others in which neither or both beings would be killed or ignored.

Mostly, though, I’ve been in games where who was accepted vs who was who was to be hounded on sight- if at all- depended on where and when the encounter occurred in the campaign. (Which, FWIW, is kinda how I try to run things.)

 

[Clint_L]

I totally get a DM imposing limits about what sort of game they want to play. I'm not into a super chaotic evil type of play and would have no interest in DMing that sort of game, and I make that clear.

But that's about the tone of the game. That seems like a totally different thing than "I would like to play a Firbolg" (or whatever).

That said, if the DM really wants to build a particular type of world, then the players should be cool about it, too. I think the issue comes when DMs are being unreasonably controlling of the the tabletop, and not allowing room for anyone else to contribute to the story beyond their strict limitations.

I'm really, really open to player interaction in the story. The players don't get to control major elements of the game world, but when it comes to day to day interactions, they improv a lot, including world details, and I love it. It makes the game way more fun when I get to be surprised sometimes.

 

[Tonguez]

But, that's not what's been asked in this thread. People are making claims that this:

View attachment 268041
is too "monstrous" to play and would be killed on sight.

Slightly disingenouous argument though. If someone was to bring that character and say she was a Warlock of the Naga-khan, who despite being human had begun to take on serpentine features I’d go ‘cool concept -but expect some prejudice.’

If however you told me she was a spy sent to infiltrate the human kingdoms and behind her was a hidden empire of yuan-ti abominations then I‘d feel justified in saying no.

*for the record I do have an empire of yuan-ti abominations imc, including human-shapechangers, but as they are a hidden evil I dont want them to be PCs

 

[Azzy]

I asked a question, no hyperbole. If the DM doesn't make the final call, who does?

The gaming group as a whole. The focus of enjoyment should revolve around the group rather than petty dictators—whether they fall on the DM's or the players' side.

 

[Hussar]

Slightly disingenouous argument though. If someone was to bring that character and say she was a Warlock of the Naga-khan, who despite being human had begun to take on serpentine features I’d go ‘cool concept -but expect some prejudice.’

If however you told me she was a spy sent to infiltrate the human kingdoms and behind her was a hidden empire of yuan-ti abominations then I‘d feel justified in saying no.

*for the record I do have an empire of yuan-ti abominations imc, including human-shapechangers, but as they are a hidden evil I dont want them to be PCs

But, that's not disallowing the race particularly though. That's more about tone of the campaign which I agree is something that the DM probably should have more say in since it's going to cause the DM all sorts of headaches if the character doesn't fit.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Going farther back (to further your point), the old WEG D6 SW RPG (which still has a large fanbase) had stats for most of the species that existed in the movies and novels that existed at the time (and several original ones).

I really need to play that someday.

 

[Aldarc]

You folks have really different experiences from me. The fastest way for me to get five characters from a curated list would be to ban those races. Any time I say “no X” that’s all anyone wants to play.

That may partly be an issue of positive/negative framing of the "pitch."

If a GM "bans" an ancestry, then it feels like the GM is taking your toy away and now you want to play with the toy that was sitting there. The GM has highlighted the absence of the toy in their pitch. It's framing based on what ancestries are not permitted.

However, if the GM says that they have a special curated list for which ancestries are in the setting (for whatever reasons), then this is framing based on what ancestries are permitted.

IME, I have seen players have less of a problem with the latter than the former, even if the former excludes less ancestries overall.

 

[MGibster]

Going farther back (to further your point), the old WEG D6 SW RPG (which still has a large fanbase) had stats for most of the species that existed in the movies and novels that existed at the time (and several original ones).

And Star Wars would be a prime example of a setting where species doens't matter all that much in the grand scheme of things. I just bought Jedi Fallen Order, and it really doesn't matter much what species the pilot or the Inquisitors are. Maybe I need to look at D&D more like I look at Star Wars. Does it really matter how the fantasy race fits into the setting? Probably not. That's not what we're focused on anyway. We're focused on adventure.